


Broken Hearts

by Rainbow_Trout



Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Memories, Sad, Survivor Guilt, Whumptober, losses on the job
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27260086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbow_Trout/pseuds/Rainbow_Trout
Summary: Whumptober Day 19 - survivor's guilt, broken hearts.They all had broken hearts.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953733
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Broken Hearts

They all had broken hearts, and survivor’s guilt was something that they all suffered from.

Not that they’d ever admit it, but they’d all experienced a call where someone had died while they’d survived. Yes, almost all of them had been victims… but if anything, that only made it worse. Because they’d had a duty of care to that person, and for whatever reason, the victim didn’t survive.

Most of the time, they were able to rationalise it on a logical level – they couldn’t really give a mask to a victim, or they’d both be dead. They couldn’t extract that mother; they couldn’t stop the father from bleeding out. The teenagers had been too far gone when they’d got there, they hadn’t had any hope. But there would always be rescues that they couldn’t justify to themselves, losses that would haunt them forever.

Everybody knew Otis’ one – when he’d told the mother and baby not to take the lift, and they had, and it had opened up on the fire floor. They all knew he saw their bodies every time he closed his eyes, and no amount of rationalisation would help him.

They all knew Boden’s one too – the young firebug that he couldn’t save. The entire situation had been so extremely sad, but the fire Chief couldn’t have changed anything. He would have never been able to give the kid the level of help he needed, not legally, and that wasn’t his fault.

Only a few of them knew about Cruz’s guilt, about the actions that he’d taken to get his brother out of the gang. And they knew that, despite Cruz’s attempts to rationalise the situation, he’d never managed to do it. What he’d done would forever weigh on his mind… and potentially rightly so.

Herrmann would never forget the first call where he’d lost a child. He’d done his very best to get him out, hiding him in his turnout coat, but the kid had died of smoke inhalation. He’d felt him take his last breath. And he’d known that he’d failed.

Capp had lost an older lady. She hadn’t been able to walk, and he’d burnt himself badly trying to get her out. But the paramedics had been unable to revive her, and Capp had only been able to watch from his own ambo as they’d called it.

Tony’s situation had been similar, but with a teenager. He’d known from the start that he wouldn’t be able to save her, but he’d still risked his own life to rescue her body. The family had thanked him, and he’d never been able to expect it.

Shay – well, Shay had never been able to process that suicide call, and sometimes she still woke up with the guy’s brains on her belt. She’d done her best to deal with it, she really had, but Dawson blaming her for how she’d handled it would always stick in her memory. Kelly Severide was probably the only person in the world who knew how much it still affected her… but contrary to the popular belief, he was a food support.

And she was his support. Kelly’s call had been when he was fresh out of the academy, having just finished at the top of his class. He’d been overconfident – he’d known that – but that wasn’t what had led to his loss. He’d simply been too slow… too inexperienced… and he hadn’t been able to carry the victim out in time. The experience had sobered him forever and had made him stricter on every candidate he’d ever seen.

Of course, that had all been in hindsight… and hindsight could be a bitch.

And hindsight could be a double-edged sword.

No one could be blamed for thinking that Casey’s most memorable rescue was when he’d been unable to save his finance from that clinic fire… and it was true that that moment had changed him for the rest of his life. But he’d already experienced his event, the day Darden had died.

It hadn’t been his fault, but maybe because of Severide’s blame, or maybe because of his own nature to blame _himself_ … well, he’d decided that Darden had been too close to respect his word… and that being close to the firehouse, having friends that he worked with… was a lethal situation.

So he’d pulled away.

None of them were guilty, none of them could really have done anything else… but it was something they all lived with.

**Author's Note:**

> Might be quite apparent that I just wasn't feeling this prompt XD Apologies for that


End file.
